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while surfing the web looking
for Christmas-Hanukkah-Kwanzaa-Ramadan pictures for a holidays diversity piece for work in 1999. My
eye is drawn toward more geometrical/technical art, as well as being drawn
to the richness of reds, oranges, and yellows. This was my original
interpretation, done in 2000 and given as a Christmas gift: |
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QATAMARUS
18th c., Egypt, al-Hamuli(?)
[Middle
East MS uncatalogued]
Housed
in the Aziz
S. Atiya Middle East Library, J. Willard Marriott Library
http://www2.art.utah.edu/Paging_Through/14/index.html
Qatamarus
is rendered in English as lectionary, and although the manuscript is
from the post-medieval period, it testifies to the persistence of
the hand-produced book. The term, qatamarus, is probably an
Arabic transliteration from the Greek kata meros (“in
parts”). A complete set of the Qatamarus would comprise four
volumes for the worship at the Office or Mass in the Coptic Church
in Egypt. Three of the volumes are seasonal, with readings
from the Old and New Testament intended for Lent, Holy Week, and
Pentecost. The fourth, the annual Qatamarus, contains readings
for the rest of the year. Different feasts are celebrated,
with lessons drawn from the Psalms and the Gospels, and selected
texts may vary in each of these books according to the particular
rite followed in Upper and Lower Egypt.
This
volume is an annual Qatamarus with readings for each Sunday and
weekday of the year not specific to any of the other three
lectionaries. It serves to establish continuity from day to
day, from Sunday to Sunday. Weekly lessons, to fit with the
life of the saint commemorated each day, are often chosen from the
Psalms and the Four Gospels. Sunday passages are thematically
grouped in fours to provide a constant topic for each of the twelve
months, an annual cycle intended to signify beginnings and ends of
things: the year, the church, the world. The first page
of this lectionary opens the Coptic year with the month of Tut
(corresponding to 12 September in the Gregorian calendar), and
Sunday readings express the love of God the Father for mankind
through constituent elements: His wisdom, the gospel of Jesus
Christ, the promise of salvation, and forgiveness toward penitents.
On the first page, an introduction in Arabic to the book is followed
by Psalm 95:1-2, the evening psalm, and a parable about the sower of
the cockle from Matthew 13:44-45.
More
reading: http://umfa.dev.verite.com/?id=MTY5#coptic
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